It

made a sacrifice unexposed to trial-men whose life has been rapture purchased by the ruin of others' innocence-tasting first the pleasures of sin, and then the banquet of religion. You have been a moral man from childhood, and yet, with all your efforts, you feel the crushing conviction that it has never once been granted you to win a soul to God. And you see another man marked by inconsistency and impetuosity, banqueting every day upon the blest success of impressing and saving souls. All that is startling. And then come sadness and despondency; then come all those feelings which are so graphically depicted here: irritation" he was angry;" swelling pride" he would not go in; " jealousy, which required soothing "his father went out and entreated him." And now, brethren, mark the father's answer. does not account for this strange dealing by God's sovereignty. It does not cut the knot of the difficulty, instead of untying it, by saying God has a right to do what He will. He does not urge, God has a right to act on favoritism if He please. But it assigns two reasons. The first reason is, "It was meet, right that we should make merry." It is meet that God should be glad on the reclamation of a sinner. It is meet that that sinner, looking down into the dreadful chasm over which he had been tottering, should feel a shudder of delight through all his frame on thinking of his escape. And it is meet that religious men should not feel jealous of one another, but freely and generously join in thanking God that others have got happiness, even if they have not. The spirit of religious exclusiveness, which looks down contemptuously instead of tenderly on worldly men, and banishes a man forever from the

circle of its joys because he has sinned notoriously, is a bad spirit.

Lastly, the reason given for this dealing is, "Son, thou art always with me, and all that I have is thine." By which Christ seems to tell us that the disproportion between man and man is much less than we sup pose. The profligate had had one hour of ecstasythe other had had a whole life of peace. A consistent Christian may not have rapture; but he has that which is much better than rapture calmness, God's serene and perpetual presence. And, after all, brethren, that is the best. One to whom much is forgiven has much joy. He must have it, if it were only to support him through those fearful trials which are to come,-those haunting reminiscences of a polluted heart, those frailties, those inconsistencies, to which the habits of past indulgence have made him liable. A terrible struggle is in store for him yet. Grudge him not one hour of unclouded exultation. But religion's best gift rest, serenity, the quiet daily love of one who lives, perpetually with his Father's family, uninterrupted usefulness-that belongs to him who has lived steadily, and walked with duty, neither grieving nor insulting the Holy Spirit of his God. The man who serves God early has the best of it. Joy is well in its way, but a few flashes of joy are trifles in comparison with a life of peace. Which is best, the flash of joy lighting up the whole heart, and then darkness till the next flash comes, or the steady calm sunlight of day, in which men work?

And now, one word to those who are living this young man's life-thinking to become religious, as he did, when they have got tired of the world. I speak

to those who are leading what, in the world's softened language of concealment, is called a gay life. Young brethren, let two motives be urged earnestly upon your attention. The first is the motive of mere honorable feeling. We will say nothing about the uncertainty of life. We will not dwell upon this fact, that impressions resisted now may never come back again. We will not appeal to terror. That is not the weapon which a Christian minister loves to use. If our lips were clothed with thunder, it is not denunciation which makes men Christians; let the appeal be made to every high and generous feeling in a young man's bosom. Deliberately and calmly you are. going to do this: to spend the best and most vigorous portion of your days in idleness, in uselessness, in the gratification of self, in the contamination of others. And then weakness, the relics, and the miserable dregs of life-you are going to give that sorry offering to God, because His mercy endureth forever! Shame -shame upon the heart which can let such a plan rest in it one moment! If it be there, crush it like a man. It is a degrading thing to enjoy husks till there is no man to give them. It is a base thing to resolve to give to God as little as possible, and not to serve

Him till you must.

Young brethren, I speak have health for God now.

principally to you. You You have strength of

mind and body. You have powers which may fit you for real usefulness. You have appetites for enjoyment which can be consecrated to God. You acknowledge the law of honor. Well, then, by every feeling of manliness and generosity, remember this:

now, and not later, is your time to learn what religion

means.

There is another motive, and a very solemn one, to be urged upon those who are delaying. Every moment of delay adds bitterness to after struggles. The moment of a feeling of hired servitude must come. If a man will not obey God with a warm heart, he may hereafter have to do it with a cold one. To be holy is the work of a long life. The experience of ten thousand lessons teaches only a little of it; and all this, the work of becoming like God, the man who delays is crowding into the space of a few years, or a few months. When we have lived long a life of sin, do we think that repentance and forgiveness will obliterate all the traces of sin upon the character? Be sure that every sin pays its price: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." O! there are recollections of past sin which come crowding up to the brain, with temptation in them. There are old habits which refuse to be mastered by a few enthusiastic sensations. There is so much of the old mán clinging to the penitent who has waited long, he is so much, as a religious man, like what he was when he was a worldly man, that it is doubtful whether he ever reaches in this world the full stature of Christian manhood. Much warm earnestness, but strange incon sistencies that is the character of one who is an old man and a young Christian. Brethren, do we wish to risk all this? Do we want to learn holiness with terrible struggles, and sore affliction, and the plague of much remaining evil? Then wait before you turn to God.

XXI.

[Preached May 15, 1853.]

JOHN'S REBUKE OF HEROD.

LUKE iii. 19, 20. —“But Herod the tetrarch, being reproved by him for Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, and for all the evils which Herod had done, added yet this above all, that he shut up John in prison."

THE life of John the Baptist divides itself into three distinct periods. Of the first we are told almost nothing, but we may conjecture much. We are told that he was in the deserts till his showing unto Israel. It was a period, probably, in which, saddened by the hollowness of all life in Israel, and perplexed with the controversies of Jerusalem,-the controversies of Sadducee with Pharisee, of formalist with mystic, of the disciples of one infallible Rabbi with the disciples of another infallible Rabbi, he fled for refuge to the wilderness, to see whether God could not be found there by the heart that sought Him, without the aid of churches, rituals, creeds, and forms. This period lasted thirty years.

It comprises
His difficulties

The second period is a shorter one. the few months of his public ministry. were over; he had reached conviction enough to live and die on. He knew not all, but he knew something. He could not baptize with the Spirit, but he could at

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